555 California Street Building vs One Montgomery Tower

Comparing the 555 California Street Building and the One Montgomery Tower is particularly interesting because they share the same skyline in San Francisco, CA, and were both designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. However, they were completed more than 13 years apart.

This offers a unique perspective on how the architect's style and the city's architecture evolved over time.

The 555 California Street Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 778ft (237m) with 52 floors above ground, while the One Montgomery Tower reaches 499ft (152m) with 38 floors above ground.

555 California Street Building also offers more total built-up area, a total fo 1,969,998 sqf (183,019m²), which is about 968,956 sqf (90,019m²) more than what the One Montgomery Tower offers.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the 555 California Street Building and the One Montgomery Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Postmodernism style.

Back then, thePostmodernism was still an emerging movement, so both giving it a pioneering role. By contrast, the One Montgomery Tower came later, when the style was already more established.

Both the 555 California Street Building and the One Montgomery Tower were designed to serve as commercial towers, and that has remained their main use since their completion, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

The 555 California Street Building also provides 450 parking spaces.

These two towers illustrate the many possible ways to combine structure and enclosure in skyscraper design.